Teenagers and young adults, who traveled to Poland and Slovakia for World Youth Day and the Jasna Youth School, spent time praying, praising God, and immersing themselves in a crowd of their peers. This experience was a true pilgrimage experience in the sense that many such sacrifices were made, from walking for hours, to spending a day or night completely drenched from pouring rain; from waiting for hours for a bus that never came, to taking cold showers, etc… But these experiences created solidarity and a supernatural atmosphere among the Midwest Focolare youth.

Members of the Focolare movement in the Chicago area participated in the liturgy and reception on the Greek Orthodox feast of the Great Vespers for the Feast of the Induction and the Protection of the Environment. The celebration was held for the Chicago area at the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Glenview. Sts. Peter and Paul is a very beautiful, colorful, icon-filled, bright and welcoming structure and was a perfect setting for such a majestic ceremony. The ceremony manifested the majesty of God, as shared by the Focolare members in attendance.

August 11-12, 2016, the North American Economy of Communion Association presented the Economy of Communion at the Montreal World Social Forum. Three bilingual (English and French) workshops were presented: one on The Work Environment and Company Values™ (Environnement de travail et valeurs™entreprise), and two on The Economy of Communion: Hope in Action (Économie de Communion: l’Espoir en Action).

“Jesus is the greatest gift of all”: with this spirit, thousands of children throughout the world remind us that “Jesus has been dislodged,” and invite us to make him once again the focus of Christmas. In St. Peter’s Square on 20 December, there will be a Children’s Jubilee with the blessing of their statues of Baby Jesus.

From July 22 to August 6, twenty-one Midwest Focolare youth, along with five chaperones, attended the festivities and activities of World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, which included a one week youth school entitled, You Got Me. The post WYD school was held in Jasna, Slovakia, sponsored by the Youth for a United World of the Focolare Movement.

Four days. Four hundred participants. Christians from many denominations. Faithful of varied religions. Young. Old. Newly arrived immigrants. Some for the first time. Others over many years. Coming together to live and share messages of hope and communion in a world so in need of Unity. These would describe the 2016 Midwest Mariapolis, as would be true for so many other locations around the world where local Mariapolis gatherings are held.

From June 22 to 26 a group of thirty teens from all different ages, backgrounds, and states traveled to Detroit to help “color the city” with love, fraternity, and unity. The trip was sponsored by Teens4Unity (T4U) and supported greatly by the Detroit Focolare community.

This website uses “technical cookies”, including third parties cookies, which are necessary to optimise your browsing experience. By closing this banner, or by continuing to navigate this site, you are agreeing to our cookies policy. The extended information document describes how to deactivate the cookies. OkRead more